Understanding When You’re Thinking Anxiously

In order to master overcoming anxiety, you have to be able to identify and overcome anxious thinking. People with anxiety generally think differently from other people. Look out for the following signs of thinking anxiously:

Approval addiction: If you’re an approval addict, you worry a great deal about what other people think about you.

Living in the future and predicting the worst: When you do this, you think about everything that lies ahead and assume the worst possible outcome, a type of thinking known as catastrophising.

Magnification: People who magnify the importance of negative events usually feel more anxious than other people do.

Perfectionism: If you’re a perfectionist, you assume that any mistake means total failure.

Poor concentration: Anxious people routinely report that they struggle to focus their thoughts. Short-term memory sometimes suffers as well.

Racing thoughts: When thoughts race, they run through your mind in a stream of almost uncontrollable worry and concern.